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I have a very special guest for you today. Each month, I guest post at Fiction University, a site overflowing with helpful information for writers at all stages. Fiction University is owned by Janice Hardy, and this week, I’m honored to have her here to share some wisdom with you. ***************************************** Common Misconceptions about Conflict(…)

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) Each month you can find me guest posting for Janice Hardy’s Fiction University on topics related to self-publishing. I’ve recently started a new series on advertising strategies for independent authors. Advertising can be a bit controversial because it can eat up a lot of money and give few results. When it(…)

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) One of the almost universal pieces of advice we hear as indie authors is that we need to build a newsletter mailing list. A mailing list allows us to keep in touch with readers and let them know when our next book releases. Theoretically, they’ll be excited to buy our book,(…)

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) Back in June I wrote a post where I outlined the pros and cons of Kindle Select, a program where you’re required to make a book exclusive to Amazon for 90 days in exchange for certain perks. One of those “perks” is that the book we enroll in KDP Select is also(…)

By Chris Saylor Today, we’re going to talk about when to capitalize titles. What I mean here is when to capitalize mom or dad, military ranks, honorifics, job titles, and so on. You do capitalize a title when making a direct address (calling someone by “name”). You also capitalize a title that’s being used in(…)

By Chris Saylor Last week, I talked about formatting dialogue within dialogue, as part of an attempt to address a request about using apostrophes in fiction. Today’s post will build off of last week’s. You can use apostrophes in two ways. First, you can use them when combing two words to form a contraction. Most(…)

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) Welcome back to the third part in my in-depth exploration of why I decided to launch a secret pen name. If you missed the other parts, you can find them here: Reason #1 – Part of a writer’s brand is their name. Reason #2 – I wanted to run an experiment(…)

By Chris Saylor Hello, everyone! I’m back from my too-long holiday break. I hope you didn’t miss me too much! Today’s post comes from an email request. It’s about properly using apostrophes, especially in dialogue. Apostrophes are a huge topic, so first I’ll cover what I think this requester was really wanting to know, which(…)

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) If you’ve just stumbled upon this post, this is actually the second in a series where I’m sharing my reasons for launching a secret pen name. Here’s the roadmap: Reason #1 – Part of a writer’s brand is their name. Reason #2 – I wanted to run an experiment about how(…)

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) So, umm…surprise. I have a pen name. She published two novels and one novella in 2016 with the third in her series already complete and ready to go in a few weeks. In 2017, if all goes according to plan, she’ll put out books 4-6 in the same series as well.(…)